


the old parable of trees and apples

by feralphoenix



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series)
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Gen, Podfic Available, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 23:06:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20016271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feralphoenix/pseuds/feralphoenix
Summary: In which Serena returns home after winning the Kalos League title, and it turns out that being a Horse Movie Protagonist may in fact be hereditary after all.





	the old parable of trees and apples

**Author's Note:**

> _(how did it get so late so soon?_ – Will she look at me with hatred or with compassion, I whose choices made her what she will be?)

Serena stands in the yard and brushes her massive Pokémon with a currycomb and then her fingers, talking nonstop all the while, as Grace leans on the front door in pajamas and bathrobe and listens. There are many ways in which her daughter has come home from her new Championship title and recent world saviordom a stranger—the severely short haircut, the flashy new Lumiose Couture clothes that must have cost a small fortune—and it is difficult to tell whether it’s this or the fabled embodiment of death Serena is babying that makes the neighbors most nervous. The neighbors are _very_ nervous about all these developments, but Rhyhorn (which Serena has been climbing all over like a jungle gym since she could walk) is still napping on the rest of the grass in a state of utter unconcern, and Grace knows whose opinion she respects more, so she just sips her coffee.

“—the way they _look_ at my Mordecai,” Serena fumes, now burying half of her face in Yveltal’s V-shaped ruff of down. Grace always figured her daughter was going to be a nicknamer, she’s always doted on Rhyhorn almost as much as Grace herself does, so it’s more the way that the Yveltal itself twists its neck so that it can preen Serena’s hair—knocking her expensive top hat off in the process—that makes Grace laugh. “Give me a break. _Give_ me a _break!_ I don’t _care_ about all the stupid legends, people probably just made all of those up a bajillion years ago _anyway_ because legendary Pokémon _look_ scary or some dumb crap—none of these idiots were _there,_ none of them saw what was _happening_ to Mordecai, and they’re sweeter than any Pokémon _you’ve_ ever fostered who was dealing with anything HALF as awful. The way they just hopped into the first Poké Ball I threw—”

“They” already, in less than two weeks since her daughter caught it, Grace observes. So many kids don’t get to the level of mutual trust and intimacy with their Pokémon needed for a Pokémon to tolerate gendered pronouns for entire months. This isn’t out of _character_ for Serena, who in her first call home was already proudly describing her starter Fennekin as her “son”, but it’s sure something to see her behave the same way with a Pokémon Grace is informed that local children grew up being told would come and get them if they were bad.

Yveltal gives up trying to chew on Serena’s head. Grace doesn’t know it well enough to tell whether it’s just bored of its Trainer’s tirade or frustrated at the bad angle, but it tilts its head back to the heavens and lets out a noisome shriek that rattles the foundations of every house and makes the hair on the back of Grace’s neck stand up—even Rhyhorn blinks open one eye.

Then Yveltal lowers its head and gapes its giant beak, very clearly begging for sweets. Serena twists her purse around and fishes out a handful of seasonal Poké Puffs, which she feeds to her Pokémon one by one. Once done with this, she dusts her hands off and gets out a ball of yarn, which she has Yveltal juggle with its head, eventually bringing out her Aegislash and Aurorus to join in.

Presently Serena finishes her game and recalls the Aegislash and Aurorus to their Poké Balls, and finally notices that Grace has been grinning at her the whole time. “What?” she demands, brows almost flat, as though preparing to fight her mother if Grace has anything disparaging to say about her newest Poké-child.

“I was just remembering back before we moved here to Kalos,” Grace says, “about how every now and then you’d get reporters pestering you because they expected you to become a racer like me. You always used to tell them off because that wasn’t what you wanted to do with your life, but they never quite believed you or just assumed you’d change your mind eventually, and kept following you around… I always knew that you had your eyes set on something bigger, even before you started talking about wanting to do a proper league challenge one day.

“But…”

“But what, Mom?” Serena asks. Her eyebrows are doing a thing fair out of one of those silly foreign movies she likes to watch, the ones with that recent Unovan champion that have cheesy overacting and bizarre endings.

Grace gestures to Yveltal, which now has its oversize head in Serena’s arms for extra petting. “I guess the apple doesn’t fall _that_ far from the tree after all, does it?”

Serena looks blank for a moment. Then it starts to dawn on her—Grace can _see_ it in her daughter’s eyes: A broken-down Pokémon mistreated by other humans, a young Trainer with a heart of gold determined to rehabilitate it, a heroic underdog story…

“Mom,” Serena says, looking horrified and simultaneously like she wants to start laughing. _“Mom._ No. That’s—that’s _so_ not what it is.”

“I can just see the documentaries they’ll make now,” Grace says dreamily, gazing out into the sky. “I just bet they’ll get as many things wrong and overexaggerate the glurge exactly as terribly as they did with mine.”

“Mom. Mom _no,_ you are NOT going to start collecting documentaries about me like you do with yourself. That’s such a weird and dumb hobby, Mom. And hey, I’m NOT going to let them make documentaries about me anyway!”

“You’re a public figure now, sweetie,” Grace informs her. “I don’t know all the laws in Kalos about that yet, but they’ll probably be able to make documentaries whether or not you want them to, and the less they consult you on them the less accurate they’re going to be.”

The look of abject disgust on Serena’s face as she cradles her Yveltal’s giant head, contrasted with the Pokémon’s obvious bliss, nearly makes Grace choke on her coffee.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [the old parable of trees and apples[Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22972642) by [Arioch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arioch/pseuds/Arioch)




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